Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Fekeo-ffed

Psst! 'ere guv, you wanna osmos-whatsit fing wot does yer limescale in roight? Yeh? I give ya special price, like guv. All you 'ave to do is 'and over the nicker and I'll get ya sorted. It's a sweet deal, you can trust me...

Except, of course, you can't, especially when the company goes bust which is what I have a nasty feeling has happened to Ekeo. I've had my osmoseur for 18 months, and the water heater has just gone up in a cloud of limescale dust to the happy knackers yard in the sky where heating elements gleam and joints are all squashy rubber.

Which is not how it should be. There shouldn't be a speck of limescale that can't be washed away osmosed to smithereens, according to the booklet delivered with the machine by the accused. But can I get any sense out of them when I call? I cannot, dear reader, no. Their phone is on voicemail and the box is full. Go to their website and it's a white page 'under construction'.

Looks suspicious, n'est-ce pas?

I'm not too worried about the water heater. It was probably full of crap from the start, and as I rent, it's not my problem beyond enduring a couple of days of bracing showers whilst waiting for the plumber to replace it. No, I'm more concerned about my own appliances.

Has the osmoseur stopped working? Should I now be stuffing Calgon into every orifice? How do I get the damned thing maintained?

I've never had anyone go bust on me before. This is definitely a new experience. There was a couple once who pulled out of a house sale at the very last minute which caused no end of trouble, but that's been about it really. I suppose I should count myself lucky, especially during la crise.

Still, I'm none the wiser about what to do with my osmoseur which I haven't even finished paying for yet.

I wonder if they've done a runner to Brazil with la caisse.

I rang up the Mairie of the head office and asked them if they knew what had happened, it being a small commune an' all. The woman who answered said I wasn't the first to call but that she had no information, so I suggested she might do well to get some as I was surely not the last person to call if the company had indeed gone bankrupt. You'd think that local gov would know if they were suddenly down some taxe professionelle. Or gossip would have reached them via Jacques in Account's cousine Emilie who was talking to her daughter who told her that poor Josephine down the road was worried cos her husband Jean-Philou had lost his job cos his employer, Ekeo, had gone bust.